Olympiacos stays strong for sixth-straight home win

Olympiacos Piraeus showed its resilience to hold off Brose Bamberg for a hard-fought 83-77 victory at the Peace and Friendship Stadium. The Reds improved to 14-6 in the standings with their sixth consecutive home victory, while the gutsy visiting team dropped to 7-13. Athletic big man Khem Birch was the standout performer for Olympiacos with a double-double of 15 points and 14 rebounds. Veteran Vassilis Spanoulis led the offense with 15 points and 6 assists and Matt Lojeski and Kostas Papanikolaou added 13 and 12 points, respectively. Nicolo Melli paced the visitors with 14 points, Darius Miller and Nikos Zisis scored 13 each and Janis Strelnieks and Fabien Causeur had 12. Both teams saw players fouled out – Nikola Milutinov and Jerel McNeal – in a physical contest, which Bamberg kept close right until the end, partly thanks to converting 23 of 25 free throws.

Olympiacos started strong behind an active Papanikolaou, who recorded 5 points, 2 steals and 2 assists by the midway point of the first quarter to establish an 11-3 lead. Eight first-quarter points from Spanoulis sent the advantage into double digits, but Bamberg finally found some offensive rhythm in the second quarter as Causeur and Leon Radosevic supplied a steady stream of points. Dominic Waters scored 6 from the bench for Olympiacos, which led 41-32 at the break. Lojeski netted a quick 7 points at the start of the second half to further extend the lead as the home team’s defense continued to hold Bamberg at bay. Having failed to score a single three-pointer in the first 29 minutes, the German champion then scored 4 triples in quick succession to make it 71-69 midway through the fourth, but Olympiacos pulled away again as Birch dominated inside. And although Bamberg continued to battle hard, there was no way back as Olympiacos finished strong.

Head Coaches

SFAIROPOULOS, IOANNIS

Olympiacos Piraeus

“We had a small problem with Printezis at the beginning of the game which kept him out, but we have the players to cover this absence. We are happy that we won because it was very important to react well after the loss we had two days ago. Our defense was the key, we controlled the game through good defense and improved a lot compared to the previous game. It’s a very important win for us after coming off a bad game, and our reaction was really good. We pushed them to play a different game from the one they wanted to play. They try to move the ball and find the open player, but our good defense broke the speed of their offensive game tonight.”

TRINCHIERI, ANDREA

Brose Bamberg

“Congratulations to Olympiacos. It was a tough game, very physical, a lot of contact and it’s always hard to play in the back to back week – you never know how much energy you can count on. We played very average offense but still had a chance to win. After the first half our plan was to wait for Olympiacos to lose some energy. We did that, came back and nearly had a chance, but then we made stupid fouls and rebounds were missed. It was a matter of details at the end.”

Players

BIRCH, KHEM

Olympiacos Piraeus

“This was a reaction game from our last game. We played terrible last time out and let them score 100 on us, so we had to come out stronger. You can’t let that happen again, so we came out strong and got the W. We’re taking it one game at a time.”

MELLI, NICOLO

Brose Bamberg

“We had a so-so first half, we were able to come back, but at the end details made the difference. They took almost twice as many rebounds as us, and if you want to come to Olympiacos and win you have to be more precise. We competed but we have to do better."